I know this should probably be in the ideas, but it's kind of important.

Many times a newbie will come on during a raid, and most, if not all of the people who can help that newbie are participating one way or another in the raid. And all of us who have participated in raids know that things are flying so fast that chances are you won't see that you have a newbie in your guild. Sadly, this results in the poor newbie being ignored sometimes, and he doesn't know what to do.

So here is what I am suggesting:

Automated Newbie Welcome messages to be set by the Guild Administrator.
For example:
Welcome to the X! Sadly, no one is available to help you get started. Read GHELP X, Y, and Z to get started. Ask any questions with GNT, and someone might be able to help you.

This message would come if there are no Undersecretaries, Secretaries, the Guild Administrater and Guild master are not on prime, this included out of the the realms, or to be configured on and off by any of those listed people, this would be included if there is a village revolt, and everyone is still on Prime. Why not on prime? If there is a raid, that way the message will automatically fire. Now granted, the one and only undersec might be bashing stuff on the Earth plane, but the that is one instance, and the Undersec could simply say, Hi, I'll be there in a bit, in the meantime read those things over and tell me when you are ready. But if everyone is on Nil because there is a Nil raid in progress, no one is going to stop what they are doing to punch in "GNT Hi! Please read X, Y, and Z. We are busy right now..." and bam you die before you get your message in.

This way, Newbies won't be fully ignored when they come on during raids and off-hours.

This might keep a few more Newbies around for the game.

Just a small suggestion, that could make a big difference.

I like it! Besides raiding, fighting, defending, inflencing, this would help if the newbie came around at some crazy hour when there's hardly anyone around too.

Everyone wants this... but they have something against it.

oooor just put it in HELP GUILDNOVICES ...? "If no one is around to teach you if and when you join, please read yadda yadda & yadda."

Arent a couple of them not working or something though?

But a real newbie, the kind who won't know to go poking around in Help and Ghelp files for what they're supposed to do, the kind that need to be told how to use their Portals... Those newbies aren't going to know to look in HELP GUILDNOVICES (blah).

I had asked Shikari if I could get Bomani to accounce things to people when they entered the guild.. he said he would look into it and never got back to me.

Except that when you pick a guild, it tells you to read HELP GUILDNOVICES (blah) for whichever guild you are thinking of joining to get an idea of it before you choose it.. so really, they should have read it before joining the guild.

I've always noticed that in some Guilds,there's someone with a reflex that automatically greets the newbie as well as points them to a scroll.

Well, looking at their STATUS should tell them how to use Portals, but that doesn't always work out either.

In which case, do you really waaant the novice in your guild anyway?

Good idea, but it really doesn't need restrictions such as having people around. There should just be GNT and CT announcements configurable by the leaders.

I hate that - it can easily cause mass spammage. I have an alias to do it manually instead.

I don't want this, it will just make full members even more lazy when it comes to directing new members.

More lazy? That is really a silly reason.

Only hte people who set up aliases ever greet people, or else you get a simple "Hi noob" and thats it


However, there are too many hours in the day when nobody is around and therefore, noobs are STUCK, because if you don't read the right help files, you really can't do anything, and there is nothing in the help files that tells you that! They just hint it, if you are expecting it.

And if you really don't like it, then your guild can not activate it, if thier population doesn't have such problems.

I usually encourage aliases as well, instead of triggers. I've also taken to waiting 20 seconds or so to let a bit of the spam flash by. They get a LOT of stuff when they step out.

This would be nice, on some level. Yet, I can see where Quidgy is going with the lazy bit. Why cant those people who arent 'leaders' so to speak teach the novice or point them along? Its not hard to say, Hello! No one is available to teach you right now, please read GHELP whatever and then go on your merry little way. Youll deal with crap if certain people hear you say it, but many are understanding that teaching isnt for everyone. However, I would mostly only like to see this come into effect when there are -no full members- on Prime. It ties back with what I said just before this.

I don't have an alias and I greet them, telling them what to initially read and where to go to meet someone for training.

Excuse me for preferring personal interaction to a set message that allows people to even further ignore newbies.

EDIT: I agree with Dia. Even if you really don't want to teach, direct them to the appropriate scroll so they can teach themself. The only time I think an automated message should be in effect is when there are no contactable full members around.

Which is what was suggested in this thread....



Right there in the first message of the thread... Thats why I said you talking about lazy people was silly.

How about we just have a big message instructing people to read 'HELP GUILDNOVICES (yourguild)' after they step out of the portal, and make sure all the guilds have files up-to-date with important GHELPS and such.